Inventory

Beijing Automotive Industry Holding Co. (BAIC), announced as a minority partner in Koenigsegg's deal to purchase Saab from General Motors two months ago, plans to produce the Saab 9-5 on Chinese soil next year. The involvement of BAIC in the Saab transaction helps Koenigsegg close the deal and gives the Chinese company leverage to re-badge the previous-generation Saab 9-5 as its own or to simply expand the brand's existing reach within the country.

Fearing that a couple dozen of its U.S. suppliers could shut down production, Toyota has established a "war room" to monitor suppliers and has begun to warehouse assembly components. While the move marks a departure from the automaker's "just in time" production philosophy, a mantra that associates stockpiling with inefficiency and waste, a bankruptcy by one of the Detroit 3 could knock-out a key supplier crippling the Japanese automaker's North American factories. It is a widespread problem, as

var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/business_finance/Chrysler_calling_2006_models_used_to_unload_them'; When even deep discounts aren't getting the job done, sometimes you've got to bend the rules. Normally, a Chrysler dealer must use a car as a loaner for three months before designating it a used car. Still wondering what to do with a "glut" of 2006 vehicles in June of 2007, Chrysler has told dealers if they use a car as a loaner for just one day, they can consider it a used car and move it off

Toyota's learning that in the case of the Tundra, American buyers won't just pick from the selection of trucks the dealer has left. It's a role reversal for the automaker used to people accepting whatever Camry they can get.

In this day and age it's a sin to still have 2006 models sitting on your dealer lot. Unfortunately for dealers under The Chrysler Group umbrella, their lots are teaming with '06 metal. The Detroit News quotes analyst John Casesa of Casesa Shapiro LLC as saying, "To have a third of your inventory in old models when you're two months into the (2007) model year, that's heavy." Heavy indeed, John.

Struggling Chrysler Corp. is pulling out all of the stops to reduce its massively overbuilt inventory of vehicles. Lease incentives, 0% financing, begging and pleading, whatever it takes. Consumers have typically been the targeted recipients of these incentives, until now.

Porsche CEO Peter Schwarzenbauer is about to open up his special brand of wup ass over the heavy incentive spending of the Big 2 and the Chrysler Group. He says the U.S. auto industry is "trapped in a death spiral" because of its dependence on incentives, and blames large automakers like General Motors, Ford and the Chrysler Group for not being able to better forecast the market and the manage supply and demand of their inventories. Large remaining inventories of last year's models are usually w

Chrysler summer-long Employee Pricing incentive ends today and is being replaced by a good old fashion Zero Percent Financing deal. The new deal applies to all 2006 models, which means Chrysler is eager to reduce the inventory of its dealers to make room for a flood of new products it plans on introducing this year, including the Chrysler Sebring and Aspen that were given prices today by the company.

The Detroit News is reporting that in addition to offering employee pricing as a purchasing incentive this summer, Chrysler will also throw in a 30-day money-back guarantee. While purchasers would have to pay a penalty and mileage fee if a vehicle were returned, the offer is a gesture that shows a buying public the company has a great deal of confidence in its products.

Earlier this week we posted about how General Motors' reported first quarter $323 million loss became a $445 million profit. And this is not by some accounting fluke: analysis of the automaker's finances shows the profit stemmed from its cost-management strategies and higher revenue from sales such as its new Buick Lucerne and Cadillac vehicles. Of course, postponing the addition of its $681 million health care settlement with Delphi to the books didn't hurt either.